Beyond Football: Shifting Interests and Identity

The discourse regarding women and gender is one of the pivotal topics that have captured the imagination of social and political critics in recent decades. Whether in politics, economics or in the educational sphere, the place of women in today’s society is still a contested issue.

In some societies women are totally absent from the state structure of decision-making bodies and process. Access to education, as well as the economy is restricted or denied. Trapped in a web of dependency and subordination due to institutional norms of culture, family, religion and politics, modern women are developing strategies to create alternative visions of the present society based on social equality, mutual respect and acceptance.

Women football offers such a platform.

As part of the events commemorating the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup tournament in Germany, the exhibition Beyond football–shifting interests and identity, interrogates through the prism of the game of football issues of gender, sexuality, discrimination, and lifestyle in contemporary societies.

While the project’s intent is not to overturn the multiple axes of stratification affecting women, this exhibition nonetheless provides a platform to negotiate, challenge, disrupt, deconstruct, reconstruct and question entrenched ideas on gender.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.